


come away o human child

by audiopsychic



Series: the waters and the wild [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drowning, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Selkie!Steve, Selkies, could be canon compliant, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 06:51:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13969659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audiopsychic/pseuds/audiopsychic
Summary: Sometimes he wonders if the serum was meant for fae. He thinks that maybe, the reason no one could ever recreate it was a touch of old magic. Maybe that’s why it went so wrong the first time, and all the times after Steve. It wasn’t meant for a human.





	come away o human child

**Author's Note:**

> holy shit ive gotten unreasonably attached to this headcanon/au there will in all likelihood be more to this at some point

Steve had grown up with the tales from his Ma. She’d grown up across the sea, in the old world, where most still held a good healthy fear of the fae. She’d come to America young, and anglicized her name. hen he was little, she would pull him close, and in the Gaelic she had made sure he knew, she’d tell him the stories that his Grandpa had told her. She told Steve about a selkie maiden, a man who was given her seal-skin willingly, a cottage on the sea, and the child born of the two.

He knew they had fae blood, and his Ma had taught him of the consequences of revealing it. “They used to burn us,” She had said. “They thought we were witches, and bound us with iron. Now if someone found out, we would be placed in a madhouse.” That night, she told him the story of a man who, while walking alone at night, came across a fairy funeral. He did what any sensible man must do, and removed his cap.

“They don’t have proper courts in America,” Said his mother. “And even if they did, selkies and shapechangers never took to any court. We may not be able to slip our skins, but we’re connected to their magic.” And his mother taught him about his Grandma’s seal-skin, and charms, and how to curse worth a damn. She taught him her stories and her magic, all his birthright.

-

After Ma’s death, Bucky had cared for Steve as he cried. The sky had darkened with his sorrow, an unnatural, low fog rolling in that hung around for weeks after. He told Bucky, in a moment of weakness, the stories his mother had told him, the ones about his family. His hands clutched at the soft coat that his mother used to hide in the very back of her dresser and cried. He had not expected it to pass to him so soon.

Steve weaves charms into Bucky’s clothes before he leaves for war, holly and yew and ash bound tightly with ribbon, sigils carefully stitched into clothes. He wills Bucky to stay safe, to keep his oath (till the end of the line) and come home alive and well. Steve further resolves himself to somehow find a way to fight beside Bucky. (And somewhere, in the back of his head, Steve hears his mother’s voice, reminding him that fae protect what is theirs.)

-

When Steve steps out of Erskine’s machine, he has changed. Not just physically, but in terms of presence, he towers over people. He is ethereally graceful, and he takes no time settling into his new limbs, sprinting after the shooter in a feat of athletics. He moves lithe and powerful, and a hunter by birthright. To Steve, it feels as if he has woken up, like a part of him that had been sleeping has finally come out to play. His teeth are sharper than they were before, he notes, offhandedly as he leaps on top of a car with all the strength he never had.

Sometimes he wonders if the serum was meant for fae. He thinks that maybe, the reason no one could ever recreate it was a touch of old magic. Maybe that’s why it went so wrong the first time, and all the times after Steve. It wasn’t meant for a human.

-

They give him a costume, dress him up like a dancing monkey, in blue and white, and a garish red that makes his skin crawl, a repulsion that tugs at him. The shield he uses for shows is made of shoddy iron. It stings his hands, and Steve never touches it without the gloves he performs with. The girls love him, and he’s polite, but where Cap’s show goes, storms follow. It’s hard to look him in his eyes, intense and stormy. He wants to fight, to use this power that’s been granted him to help others, to give them a chance. They all can see this.

-

When he learns Bucky is missing, that fierce protective streak roars with a vengeance, and as he sits in the plane with Peggy and Stark, he thinks of the charms Steve sewed into Bucky’s clothes, and hopes, thinks, knows that Bucky’s alive. Bucky must keep his oath. Steve’s with him till the end of the line.

-

The glistening blue inside those cartridges sends a shiver down his spine, something faint, but cold and hungry reaching out. He pockets one of the cartridges. Carefully.

-

He knows Bucky isn’t there as soon as he reaches the prisoners. Steve gets the others out, then continues to look for Bucky. He’ll find him if it’s the last thing he does.

Steve searches him out with the help of the spells he uses to protect bucky, cutting the straps binding him to the cold metal table. There’s something different about Bucky, something familiar in the way the touch of magic always is. It’s a similar type of magic to the lesser, more corrupted version he can taste on Schmidt.

-

Stark’s layout of shields is unsatisfactory, but, when Steve lifts the circular shield, he feels something special. The metal calls to him, and it’s not steel, or iron, or anything in between. It’s something new. And Steve likes it. Stark tells him it’s only a prototype, but Steve wants it. This is his shield.

Together, the Howling Commandos lay waste to Hydra, cutting swathes of destruction through their bases. Steve extends his charmwork, binding the rest of them into his heart with magic and his own stubborn streak of protectiveness. They all know there’s something odd about Steve, but it’s unimportant to them. His kind smiles and kind words, how he watches their back on the battlefield, the way he cares so deeply about them are the only things that truly matter. They’re a family, forged in the heat of battle and in the moments in between.

Steve learns new magic from people in the villages they liberate, and his knowledge grows. His grandmother’s soft sealskin is folded in the bottom of his bag, hidden and safe. Sometimes, he wraps it around himself, in quiet moments late at night when the Howlies are asleep, running his hands over it and imagining what it would be like to disappear into the ocean waves forever.

They stand on the ledge above the tracks, and Steve can feel something off, a deep, cold foreboding that comes from generations of fae knowledge. But, as he jokes with Bucky, he feels like everything might go well for once.

As Buck slips off the rail, Steve feels something inside him shrivel and die. He will avenge Bucky. Hydra will not stand in his way. He curses Schmidt to a cold and hopeless death, and condemns Hydra to fall. He will not let this go. Bucky is his, and though it was the end of the line for Bucky, it was not for Steve. They took what was his, and for that he will take all that they see as theirs.

At the meeting, Steve is quiet, but his rage is palpable, his normally bright blue eyes a stormy blue grey. Clouds rumble above as they make their plans to wipe out Hydra.

He tears through the soldiers blocking him from destroying Schmidt, angry and cold as the stormy sea.

The burning red of Schmidt's angry face burns as the two of them grapple, the Valkyrie listing to one side. Weapons discarded, the two of them grapple with eachother, viciously attacking, their magic lashing out in fury. Schmidt’s magic is twisted, wrong, and it makes Steve’s skin crawl. Schmidt is thrown into the pilot’s seat, and the plane dips. They’re thrown against the ceiling, and Steve watches as Schmidt pulls himself to the driver’s seat, and switches on autopilot, causing the plane to level out. Steve slams against the floor, and suddenly, Schmidt is talking, but Steve’s not listening as he carefully dodges the blasts, making his way towards his shield, which he flings into Schmidt with an inhuman strength, making Schmidt fly back into the chambers holding the Tessaract.

The Tessaract lifts out of its containment tube, the mechanism broken. Schmidt pushes himself to his feet, and grabs the cube.

Steve can taste the Tesseract in the air, as empty and cold as the void of space, burning with something other. Something wanting. He can see the stars glowing in the distance, real and bright as the Tessaract pulls at the fabric of reality. It consumes Schmidt, then melts its way through the floor of the Valkyrie. Steve is glad he doesn’t have to be around it any more.

He makes his way to the driver’s seat, then calls Peggy. He’s not going to make it out of this one.

-

He crashes the plane.

Steve can feel the water rushing in, the pain is excruciating. As the water begins to rise, he feels the freezing cold fade into a burning sensation that creeps its way slowly up his body. The water was nearly up to his nose, and Steve strains to keep his head above the water, but it was all for nought. It slowly rises above his head, until he can hold his breath no longer, taking one last gasping breath of air. He struggles to hold it, but as the minutes pass by, steve can feel himself weakening. Finally, he breathes in, the water rushing into his lungs. Steve was no longer able to hold back his desperate gasping for breath, damning himself with every breath he takes, panicking as he struggles, strapped into the pilot’s seat. After what felt like hours of suffering, he floats there, barely conscious, his magic the only thing keeping him stable in his watery grave. The Valkyrie sinks further below the ice, and Steve feels himself begin to freeze.

Steve wishes he died.

-

When he wakes up, Steve can tell something is off. The way the light hits the buildings outside, the way this woman holds herself, the way she’s dressed, the game on the radio, the sounds around him, hell, even the magic is fainter, faded to near nothing.

This is a world of technology, with no place for the latent magic he possesses, at least not on earth. The power he wields - both as Cap and Steve - does not belong here. He does not belong here. Not in this time, with its bright lights and its busy rush. The world has moved past him. Steve lives in the past, a remnant of a time long gone.

-

He does not know if Tony ever notices it, but Steve stays away from him while he’s in the suit, too much red, amd even the title of iron sends an uncomfortable shiver down his spine. Maybe Natasha notices, but he can never tell with her.

Natasha notices a lot more than most.

Clint seems to have the sight, at least, that’s what Steve thinks. Maybe Loki’s magic had something to do with it. Regardless, sometimes, when he looks at Steve, Steve feels like Clint can see what he really is, and not the careful front he has built for himself. It makes steve wary, but Clint is a good man.

Thor makes Steve uncomfortable. His magic is different, and something in Steve feels threatened by the frankly imposing amount of power within him. But even Steve is not immune to Thor’s infectious enthusiasm, and he slowly warms up to the norse god.

-

“The fact that you didn’t drown is frankly impossible, even with the serum. Our best scientists couldn’t figure it out. It may have had something to do with the composition of the serum, but we’ll never know, not without Erskine.” Steve stays carefully quiet. He looks over the charts and readings they’d taken from him. It was magic. He knew they wouldn't accept that answer, so Steve didn’t volunteer it. Even after they’d met norse gods, humans were still so blind to what was right in front of them.

Humans could not see the truth if it stared them in the face.

 


End file.
